Today we announce the 2017 Ibrahim Leadership Fellows, who will make up the programme’s sixth cohort. The three Ibrahim Fellows are Robtel Neajai Pailey (Liberia) who will join the African Development Bank (AfDB), Ndapiwa Segole (Botswana) who will join UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and Oulimata Fall (Senegal) who will join International Trade Centre (ITC). The programme is designed to mentor future African Leaders. The candidates, chosen from among a pool of over 2,000 applicants, will take up posts in these three multinational organisations and benefit from direct mentorship of their current leaders.

Commenting on the new Fellows, Mo Ibrahim said:

I would like to congratulate our new Ibrahim Leadership Fellows. With leadership in Africa as one of the focus areas of the Foundation, the programme provides a platform to cultivate a community of individuals who will rise to become Africa’s future inspirational leaders. The three will join a network of fellows who share a commitment to making a positive impact on the continent, contributing their skills and learning for a better Africa.

The 2017 Ibrahim Fellows

Robtel Neajai Pailey will join AFDB. She is a Liberian academic, activist and author of the anti-corruption children’s book, Gbagba. With over a decade of combined professional experiences in Africa, Europe and North America, she has worked across a broad range of fields supporting governments, universities, NGOs, media institutions, regional and multilateral organisations. Previously a Mo Ibrahim Foundation PhD Scholar at SOAS, University of London, Robtel is completing post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford documenting the socio-economic development implications of crisis-induced return migration to Cameroon, Chad, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Liberia and Niger.

Oulimata Fall has joined ITC. She comes from the Senegalese Export Promotion Agency where she worked as the Head of Trade Promotion and Economic Intelligence Department. She has successfully implemented aid for trade projects in order to connect sustainably Senegalese SMEs to international markets. Over the past 10 years, Oulimata was in charge of export development and promotion of agriculture, seafood, handcrafts and textiles ‘Made in Senegal’ products.

Ndapiwa Segole has joined UNECA. She is a public sector economist with extensive experience spanning nine years in development and economic planning serving the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development at a district level. In this capacity, she coordinated district economic development activities, manages government projects of all magnitudes, carried out feasibility studies to determine project viability and undertakes contingency planning and implementation.

The application process for the 2018 Ibrahim Fellowships Programme will open on 14 August 2017.